


The world was on fire, no one could save me but you

by TheBrideOfTheWind



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: 1x01 up to Murphy's hanging, Angst, Character Study?, I know, M/M, Mostly Canon Compliant, Mutual Pining, Possibly Unrequited Love, it's sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-31
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-10-12 15:59:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10494420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBrideOfTheWind/pseuds/TheBrideOfTheWind
Summary: No, he never thought he would love someone. He never thought he would have the opportunity to love someone.So he stopped to love. He ceased to love. He didn't remember what love was before he came to the ground.





	1. I never dreamed that I'd meet somebody like you

**Author's Note:**

> This is no reinventing of the wheel, just me waxing about Murphy's and Bellamy's first days on the ground.
> 
> The title and the chapter titles are from the song “Wicked Game” by Chris Isaac.

He has never thought he would love someone. Ever. Love wasn't a concept that seemed entirely foreign to him; there had been a time when at least his parents had loved him. Sometimes, he could still feel the last time his father kissed his cheek, the veil of tears in front of his eyes when he realized he would never come back. When he realized that love wasn't strength but weakness. 

However, it was the moment he found his mother in a pool of her own vomit, after she had blamed him for his father's death over and over again, that made him finally realize that love was blind and deaf, and God, as well as the small part of him that still believed in a higher power, was dead. 

The last time he felt something after the death of his parents was when he set fire to the officer's quarters who arrested his father, the flames dancing in his eyes and licking on his outstretched fingers, the heat on his skin both tempting and unbearable. 

He always thought he would rot and die in that sky cell, if they didn't decide one day that even the delinquent juveniles needed to be floated right away, to get more room or more air. And he was sure that if he turned out to be lucky enough to reach his 18th birthday and get a review, he wouldn't be pardoned and released anyway. He wasn't privileged, he wasn't educated, he wasn't exactly the kind of kid that managed to convince others of his atonement. Not that he regretted anything. He never regretted anything.

He didn't think about the future. He couldn't imagine himself happy again. It was hard to think about happiness when he couldn't remember how it felt to be happy. How it felt to be loved. His new life, as much as his old one, consisted of surviving and waiting that something happened. That anything happened. Nothing more and nothing less.

No, he never thought he would love someone. He never thought he would have the opportunity to love someone. 

So he stopped to love. He ceased to love. He didn't remember what love was before he came to the ground.

It felt like awakening from a long slumber. His eyes, his nose, and his ears exploded with thousands of new impressions: colours, scents, noises, he had never seen, never smelled, never heard before. 

The azure blue of the sky above. The brown and green shades of the forest. The warm yellow of the sun, that differed so much from the artificial light he was used to. The pale glow of the moon at night.

Herb and flower fragrances uniting to a compelling mixture of tanginess, sweetness, and pungency. The aroma of pine needles and cones, fresh and resinous. The warm, intense smell of wood mingling with the darker, heavier notes of the soil. Over everything the distinct odour of mould and rot.

The rustling of leaves in the wind. The flutter of a bird's wing. A branch cracking under his careless feet. The laughter and the cries of delight surrounding him.

He needed to touch everything. The soft, green grass and the moss underneath his feet. A spider web. The bark of a tree. The beautiful, dainty flowers that covered the forest floor. The ripe berries, squeezing them too tight in his haste, the sticky juice running over his hands, speckling his ivory skin with red. 

It felt like a dream. The sunlight prickling on his bare skin. The wind tousling his hair like a gentle caress. The crisp, clear air filling his greedy lungs. The vast, the unbelievable vast and the freedom it provided. 

And if it was a dream, he was afraid someone could wake him up sometime.

He had never felt more vibrant and alive, in retrospect, he wasn't sure if he had ever been alive in the first place. His head and heart were humming with joy; he felt drunk and delirious. And hungry, like he had been starving for a long time. He was ready to conquer the world. 

Then he met Bellamy Blake.

It was like something, that had been simmering in him for a while, could finally boil over. Fire ran through his veins. He wasn't in love. He was burning. With rage. With passion. With desire.

He was under a spell. Every appreciative nod, every praising word, every touch, fingers warm and firm on his skin, left another part of him singed. 

Bellamy was ebony hair and onyx eyes, golden skin and sun-kissed freckles, voice like gravel and whispered promises. Bellamy was jumping headfirst into the sea without knowing how to swim. Bellamy was every single thing he'd ever wanted and couldn't have.

He still remembered the first time it rained, the way the water trickled down their faces, leaving glistening trails on their cheeks. He still remembered the unfamiliar humidity in the air, the earthy smell of the ground, the sound of the leaves dripping with wetness. And he still remembered how they nearly kissed, feeling glorious and invincible, raindrops sparkling in Bellamy's eyelashes and on his damp lips. 

Afterwards, they had sprawled out next to the fireplace under the canopy of stars, so close that he could feel the heat radiating from Bellamy's body, his own frantic heartbeat synchronizing with the older boy's slower and steadier breaths. The air smelled of fire and smoke, and temptation, and Bellamy smelled like it, too. Maybe he always had.

He felt Bellamy's gaze on him, not daring to look back, wondering how his hands would feel on his skin, if his lips would taste like fire and smoke as well. Still lost in thought, he was jolted out of his reverie when Bellamy leaned over and put a loose strand of hair behind his ear, slow and cautious, fingers wandering lazily over his tingling skin.

His raging pulse resounded in every part of his body, wild and untamed, and he was sure Bellamy noticed it, his face hidden in the shadow, the flickering flames casting an eerie glow on his cheek. Exhaling another shaky breath, he stumbled to his feet, and with one last glance back at Bellamy's curled up figure, he disappeared into the dark to find a place to sleep in a corner of the dropship where nobody would mess with his head.

He was a realist, always had been. His ability to dream had been crushed long before his feet touched the ground for the first time. No, he had never been a dreamer. Bellamy was almost impossible, and yet the more time he spent with him, the more he started to think that, in the end, there could be an infinitesimal probability behind all of his impossibility. 

It was lingering looks and stolen glances, words breathed on ears and unnecessary touches. It was knees brushing at the fireplace and fingers grazing hips while passing by. It was dancing on the edge of a cliff with your eyes closed, coming closer and closer, testing how far you could go before you fell. It was playing a game without rules, and he was losing. 

With every day that passed, the darkness he carried closed in on him a little bit more. It crept up on him, slowly but purposefully, until nearly all the light in him had been doused. But darkness was never something he had been afraid of; darkness was something he had learned to live with.

He wasn't in love. And he wasn't burning anymore. He was drowning. In violence. In frustration. In yearning. Head under water. With every frown, with every reprimand, with every girl that left Bellamy's tent the water pressed heavier on his lungs. He was so close to crack, so close to open his mouth and inhale and inhale, until the water flooded him, because at least it meant to do something, at least it meant to do anything, at least it wasn't just waiting anymore.

When he was sure he couldn’t take it any longer, time came to a halt. It was the end of all things. He should have seen it coming.

The spell broke. And so did he.

The leaves over his head whispered softly in the breeze, the branch of the tree he was tied to creaking under his weight. Somewhere, in the deep of the forest, a dying animal screeched in agony. 

And he, too, was dying.

Love was a vial of stolen medicine that didn't help anyway. Love was the look in his mother's eyes after his father's death. Love was holding things too tightly and breaking them apart. Love was holding onto things which didn't want to be held at all. 

Love was the taste of copper on the tip of his tongue. Love was the red colour of a seat belt stuffed into his mouth. Love was the tight grip of a noose around his neck. Love was the noise of a crate being kicked from beneath him. 

Love was despair. Love was destruction. Love was death.


	2. I never dreamed that I'd lose somebody like you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same setting, same characters, just from Bellamy's POV.

Bellamy loved the stars. He learnt to love them, like he learnt to love the ancient heroes his mother used to read him stories about. Some of them, like Hercules, were even immortalized on the night sky. When he was a young boy, he dreamt of being one of those heroes, of everlasting praise and glory, of legendary exploits that would make him immortal as well. Sometimes, he dreamt of the ground, pondering if the stars would look the same from down there. If he could be a hero down there.

But those dreams were long forgotten, and he wasn't a boy anymore.

He had never cared about a lot of things. He cared about the father that he could only remember hazily. He cared about his mother, who managed not to raise only one but two children in a place where only one was allowed. He cared about his career. In all these years, he had always wanted to be a guard; there had never been any other option for him. If you didn't have the required silver tongue to be a politician – which he definitely lacked – it was the closest thing to becoming a hero.

The person he cared the most about, though, was his little sister. Octavia, he named her, like Emperor Augustus' elder sister, connecting myth and reality. In the end, his love had brought her into a sky cell, his mother floated into space, and him into janitorial services.

When everything in his life went to hell, he made the decision to take a risk. He didn't have to lose anything other than his own life anyway. And he would have done everything for his sister, getting to shoot the guy who decided to lock her up and to float his mother, had just been the icing on the cake.

All the training didn't prepare him for the moment he decided to take somebody's life, however, even if this somebody was Chancellor Jaha himself. But it was worth it. He and Octavia were reunited again. They weren't dead. Earth could be habitable. All he had to do was to keep them alive. 

He met John Murphy soon after their arrival. Maybe it was the way he carried himself that caught his eye, with a carelessness and a boldness that only came with people that had nothing to lose. Maybe it was the way he gazed at him with a daring intensity, making him waver between wanting to look away and wanting to hold his gaze until he bowed down, until he grovelled, until he broke. 

He could see the hunger in the younger boy's eyes. And he was hungry, too. For life. For power. 

Everything about him was sharp. His piercing blue eyes. His prominent nose. His cheekbones. The way his thin lips curled mostly in disdain or mockery.

Murphy was resolute, he was resilient, he didn't yield. When he fell down, he got back up again. He wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty; fulfilled every task he gave him with an iron determination. A perfect right-hand man. All he needed was a firm hand and a little bit of attention. 

He kept him close, like you keep someone close that you dread. He was unpredictable in his wildness, a loose cannon, yet a powerful weapon if you knew how you had to handle him. In a way, Bellamy had always liked weapons, always enjoyed the thrill, the sensation of cold metal on his skin. And if Murphy were a weapon, he wouldn't be a knife hidden in your boot but a gun on display, securing and terrifying, always locked and loaded. And as with any weapon, he just had to be careful not to hurt himself.

But the younger boy hung on his lips, glued to his side, eager, so eager for everything he had to say, everything he proposed. Most of the other delinquents weren't different. Endless possibilities presented themselves to him. 

For once in his life, he wasn't Bellamy Blake, the son. Bellamy Blake, the brother. Bellamy Blake, the protector. He was Bellamy Blake, the king, and all these temptations were offered to him willingly, and all he had to do was take and take, as much as he could get. And somehow he even relished the other boy's presence, bathing in his constant affection and allegiance. It made him feel wanted; it made him feel like he was someone again. It made him feel special.

It was a weird companionship they developed. As much as him, Murphy was a creature of the night, moulded by his past on the ark. 

The boy held galaxies in his eyes; the moonlight touched his face with tenderness. He was a star, already on his way to collapse and turn into a supernova. He wasn't built to last. Sooner or later he was going to explode in a burst of white light, and Bellamy wasn't sure if he wanted to be present to witness this event. 

He didn't realize it wasn't just admiration or hunger for power that made the younger boy follow him so blindly, till the moment they were arguing, face to face, the heat between them palpable, Murphy's steely eyes breathing fire, his gaze flickering to his lips for a second too long to be brushed off as accidental. 

His pale face glistened with sweat; his eyelids rose blossoms, his lips an appealing crimson, a ripe fruit, ready to be picked. And even smeared with blood, even covered in bruises and cuts, he looked both diabolical and ethereal. 

He pushed him away a little bit too violently, his hands still burning from touching him, his breath still rapid from the closeness, fury and confusion clouding his mind.

To his surprise, the revelation didn't leave him cold, and from then on, he started to see the other boy in a different light, noticing a rare, captivating beauty behind his ferocity that may have been there all along. His svelte figure moved with a cold certainty and a purposefulness that sometimes made him watch him like he would watch a wild animal, with both fascination and fear. 

The incident made him muse over the other boy, too. From time to time, when he was with one of the girls, he caught himself thinking about ocean eyes instead, about milky skin and cruelly twisted lips. He was sure if he ever crossed that line, though, there would be no turning back. It was all or nothing with Murphy. There was no in between.

It was walking a fine line. He did his best to keep some distance between them, to stop his heart from stumbling and his fingers from craving to touch the younger boy. Although it was hard sometimes. Especially when Murphy looked up while he was watching him a little bit too carelessly, their eyes colliding like two rogue planets, making him question all of his good intentions in an instant.

No, it wasn't easy. Juggling between keeping an eye on his sister, who did her best to make it as hard as possible, keeping the other delinquents and Clarke at bay, and preventing himself from snapping at Murphy whenever he got too close, whenever things got too intense, too dangerous. 

It didn't help that every time Murphy defied him – which happened more and more often – it sent an electric shock through his body, and in more than one occasion he contemplated making him shut up for once, either by fighting or kissing him, and for all he knew about Murphy, those two things could have been entirely the same.

He was losing his grip. On Octavia. On Murphy. On the other delinquents. Clarke's privileged goody-two-shoes mentality was finding more and more supporters. 'Rebel King', they called him, yet it was a broken crown he was wearing. Something had to happen. 

And something did happen.

He could still see the look on the boy's face, his bloody lips moving pleadingly under the red belt, repeating his name like a prayer. He could still hear the crowd chanting his name, like a chorale, like a hymn, but violent and hungry for blood, inciting him, his feet nearly moving on their own accord. And if he was a god, he was a violent one; he was an unforgiving one.

He had never felt more powerful and more helpless in his life before. It was so easy just to give them what they wanted, so easy to get rid of him for good. After all, they couldn't let a murderer escape unscathed, one of their own or not. And Murphy had developed into a liability, into a risk he wasn't sure he could afford any longer. He couldn't seem weak in front of them. He couldn't let him go. 

They could have been conquerors together, they could have been kings, they could have been gods. They could have been immortal, their names carved in stone, their story told in songs like in the old days.

But nobody was immortal. Not even John Murphy. 

The moon was hidden behind the clouds, the sky dark and threatening. And when the glow from the boy's face vanished, Bellamy realized that he, who had been the one to put the stars in his eyes, was also the one to extinguish them. 

He was no hero on the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> It's always harder for me to write from Bellamy's perspective because I can relate better to Murphy. Make of that what you will;-). Hope I could capture a glimpse of him, and this isn't too far-fetched.
> 
> On a sidenote: I love Murphamy and can't wait for them to be stuck in space together.


End file.
